Opponents of the Streetcar complain that it “doesn’t go anywhere” but the reality is that the Cincinnati Streetcar will follow the densest route in terms of population and employment centers—giving the city greatest return on its investment.

This Map shows two different possible routes of the Streetcar. Which route connects more residents and jobs?

The Blue Route. Despite only running 1/6th the length of the Red lone, the Blue route has greater residential and employment coverage than the Red route

Here is the proposed route of the streetcar. It serves 62,136 residents and 54% of the jobs in the City of Cincinnati. It has a projected cost of $185 million.

Here is another possible route, covering a much larger distance. This route runs 47 miles, but only serves 60,627 residents and approximately 43.7% of the jobs in the City of Cincinnati. It has a projected cost of $1,104 million ($1.1 billion), assuming the same per mile cost as the Blue Route.

The blue route serves eight neighborhoods, the red rote serves twenty two. The Blue route costs only 17% as much as the Red one does, but the Blue route serves more people and jobs.

Why build the Streetcar along blue route? Because it has a much lower cost and connects our largest employment centers and major attractions. It is a dense, efficient route that will drive investment and create jobs along the line, leading to increased tax revenues that can be spent in all 52 of Cincinnati’s Neighborhoods. Support the City–Build the Streetcar.

10 thoughts on “The Red Route or the Blue Route?”

Nice post, but curious as to where the Red Line route came from – did you just create this as an example, or is it from an actual prior proposal?

Also, in reality, the success of the streetcar (built as proposed recently, on the Blue Line) will be so popular that it will be extended to cover the areas of the Red Line, and more in the coming years.

How is “serves” defined? Residents/jobs within 3 blocks of the line or so, total residents/jobs in a neighborhood through which the line runs, or something else? Either way, I think your point is valid, it’s almost more for my curiosity.

Expanding the system to serve more neighborhoods down the road will most certainly be a great thing. As has been seen in virtually every other city with a newly built light rail or streetcar system, they started small and then expanded from there. See Dallas, Portland, Seattle, or Charlotte to start.

Cincinnati needs to build a high-quality system that is efficient, cost effective and clean. The Cincinnati Streetcar will be just that, and once it has shown its incredible success expanding to other areas of town will be no problem.

Just out of curiousity, I see the northern edge touching on Avondale. Is the suggestion to run it up to the Zoo? It would make sense and one could see families coming to the Zoo and then taking the streetcar downtown or to Findlay Market, no?

Blue (north-south) first, I agree. Still, it’s always good to point out that there will be extensions in all directions after the first line is completed. I’d say the biggest mistake C-bus made was not reiterating over and over ad nauseum that the streetcar system was only a startup line, and not, I repeat, not the complete system.